Jurisprudence
by pouf
Summary: When the death note proves to be authentic, Yagami Raito is overwhelmed. As the new murderer considers the future, a car accident stops him in his tracks. What happens when L enters the equation before the birth of Kira? Raito/L.
1. Rhetoric: The Art of Enchanting the Soul

Chapter 1: Rhetoric – The Art of Enchanting the Soul

_(Ellyanah: __More like the art of chaining and dragging to an abyss while cursing…)_

**Disclaimer:** Hi this is Ellyanah speaking (I'm some random friend of the actual author). She does not own Death Note. Proof: L dies!! That is enough to prove anything at all!

Yagami Raito felt, if at all possible, as if he was entirely shrouded in obscurity. Granted, the street lights were on, illuminating the surroundings of his slouched shadow, but the teenage boy did not slouch, it was a known fact. Yet, at the moment, he had no choice but to repress his habitual urge to stand perfectly straight. Having an impeccable posture, for Raito, was a sign of pride. Carrying oneself well gave a good first impression and denoted a feeling of confidence, which contributed to his image as a perfect student, friend, son and brother. Of course, all of those personas were for show. They were roles that he filled in the most socially acceptable of ways, but, like an actor performing on a stage, the behavioural and cognitive patterns that he displayed were far from genuine. However, his pride and confidence had been crushed earlier that night. His normally pulchritudinous self was ruffled – his hair was tousled and his tie was too far on the right. Hitherto, things like that had never happened, and the fact that he was letting his physical appearance decay even the slightest bit only served as a testament to his mental anguish.

_He could use the notebook to do some good to the world, as a way of paying back the debt he owed for his crimes._

Yes, he felt that only shadows existed, despite the light from the neon insignia of a nearby 24/7 drugstore reflecting on the metal tip of his pen, which had slid into view in his breast pocket from the erratic movements he had been making. He was unable to move in his usual fluid manner and his stride had lost its grace in favour of a jerky march because he had killed, using the very pen which was shining right into his eyes, blinding him momentarily. Raito was indeed sightless – what else could one who was unable to see light be called? There was a light somewhere, casting the shadows and darkness that he perceived, but like a clinically blind person, he could not see it. All he had was the knowledge that it existed, but it was so far away, buried deep in his thoughts, that he could no longer recall what it was like. Perhaps it was an accurate description of what a deaf person thought of music, and perhaps it was not.

_Certainly, the notebook must have some utility. Everything was useful._

Darkness - that was the hue of his murder weapon. Others might have seen it as black, but the youth knew better. Black and white simply respectively equated to the absence and abundance of light, so if they were called colours by some, Raito would qualify darkness and light as such as well. That notebook was not black. It simply lacked light, its one and only lacuna in the broad definition of the term. Light implied warmth. Light implied morality. Light implied righteousness. The teenager knew that, to eliminate the harm the notebook could cause, he would be well-advised to flood it with light. He should burn it with the heat of fire, he should stop using it to keep up his standards of morality, he should get rid of it and take its stain off his hands.

_There were definitely some undesirables, some who were far more offensive blemishes on the reputation of humanity than he was._

The truth was that he couldn't. How could he use light as a weapon, when he felt that the darkness had seeped in from the book into his very core and had extinguished even the very memory of light? He supposed it was a testimony to his weakness, a fault that he had not seen within himself when he was too busy hiding imperfections. Yagami Raito was, perhaps, not as virtuous as he had assumed if the somewhat accidental killing of two people extinguished any sense of right he had possessed. He needed to clean himself, he had to regain it. Ideas and plans flooded his mind, lulling him into beginning to believe his own specious arguments.

_The notebook could get rid of them._

The young man immediately subdued the nauseating concept. He would not achieve a clear conscience by further polluting it. He briefly wondered about the source of these thoughts he would have never considered seriously prior to the evening, but such concerns were quickly brushed aside. He had glimpsed what he could become, and such a thing was out of the question. It was a terrifying concept to behold, that within him he could find something darker than darkness, more empty than void, colder than the absolute zero. Discovering that one holds an immense potential for evil did not please Raito, but his worsening mood did not change the facts. He had killed and had gone as far as wanting to do it again.

_He was a criminal._

He truly did feel that he had, in truth, become a part of the darkness. It had eaten him whole; it had destroyed his true self and ravished his thought pattern. If the true Raito was already vanishing, all that remained was his soon to perish consciousness of the fact. When that was gone, he would already be dead, leaving behind a shell of pure darkness. He felt himself blanch at the idea of his empty self, devoid of any sense of good, armed with a death note. Such a thing would not do. He would, upon twisted morals, become what he wished to eliminate, and that was entirely inacceptable. As Raito continued walking, in a manner akin to that of an inebriated man, he was gradually growing accustomed to the thought of having murdered, a new attitude that strongly supported his hypothesis of a disappearing sense of morality.

_The notebook could get rid of him._

Raito considered putting an end to his life before further murderous thoughts invaded his mind, but quickly pushed the idea away. Doing such a thing was cowardly and would not resolve any of his problems. Escaping the darkness with more darkness would not serve to extinguish it in a satisfactory way. The truth was that there was nothing that he could do.

_Out of the question._

He could live with the knowledge that he had killed and soon fail to repress the desire to do so again. Even if his logic behind it was well-intentioned, he still knew that it was murder.

_There had to be other options._

The alternative was eliminating himself, but that would fail to correct the problem that the death note presented. Someone else could stumble upon it and commit the same mistakes he had, and history would repeat itself until someone allowed the darkness to completely overcome them.

_He was out of choices._

Destroying the book was out of the question. Already, he could not bring himself to do it. Moreover, he could not completely ignore the nagging feeling that it could be used to do some good – just not by him.

_There was nothing he could do._

Raito's thoughts swirled dementedly in his mind, creating a mental siphon of distress. His movements grew more erratic, as he stumbled over his own feet. His hand flew to a telephone pole for support while he tried to regain his breath. He did not know how it had left him – it simply had. Breath was life, and it was slowly leaking out of him with his sense of self. His eyes fell on a "lost cat" flyer. The mundane aspect of it struck him. Here he was, a murderer by experiment, potential serial killer and possible suicidal teen – and there was someone's cry for finding a kitten. His dry remark was cut short by the strident screech of tires, a dull pain that covered his entire body, and a heavy thud.

_Nothing._

A/N: Ellyanah: Hi again. So you have just finished my friend's first chapter. Brilliant isn't it? Not all chapters will be as angst, do not worry dear readers. Now leave review. There is a bottom at the left bottom corner for that purpose. Don't you want to use it? Yes of course you do!

Stay tuned for L's grand entrance next chapter.

PS: for all those wondering why I'm the one writing the author's note and not the author... well I am just that random and she lets me out of the goodness of her heart (I bugged her to death until she let me.)

(The actual author, Pouf: I just had to correct her mistakes, otherwise she wrote the whole A/N. I am merely the chapter and theme provider, she furnishes the plot. I had wanted to write a fanfic for a while, but was always lacking confidence about my plots. She's providing the encouragement I needed :D Thanks Elly!!)


	2. Stupidity does not have its rhetoric

Chapter 2: Every weakness has its rhetoric, but stupidity does not.

**Author's Note: **I'm REALLY, REALLY (really!) insecure about this chapter's characterization of L. I mean, I was insecure about the previous one, but it is worse for this one. I'm scared that I didn't portray L well enough, and in fact, the more I think about it, the less I feel that I did a good job. Nevertheless, here's L's grand entrance. Crosses fingers hoping you all like it

**Ellyanah**: Ignore her! She doesn't know what she is talking about!

**Pouf: **I beg to differ.

**Disclaimer:** I unfortunately do not own Death Note. As Elly said last time, if I did, L would not have died. Oh, and one more thing: Misa would likely never have existed. If she did, I'd have made her suffer. (I don't own Durkheim or Plato, either.)

L was bored. He looked out the window from the back seat of Watari's new acquisition, a black Mercedes. The view did nothing to alleviate his condition – very few things did, as they could be counted on his fingers. The shadows cast by streetlamps provided no entertainment, like everything else. In fact, boredom could be the word used to describe the general state of his mind throughout his life. It ate at him from the inside – a most horrifying state stemming from a subservient life that lacked any true challenge. His mind was agonizingly becoming numb while it thirsted for something more than what he was given. It was an interesting contrast with the dancing movement of the lights outside, though it was an effect of relativity. They appeared to be moving, but in fact, it was L's vehicle that was creating the illusion of motion. He was briefly reminded that, to all those who belonged outside of his consciousness, he was like the lights; a bright, quick and fascinating thing, so different from their static position. In reality, society was moving at its own pace, carrying them with it and leaving him out as something to be admired, but never touched. Maybe he was like a complex artwork which gave a convincing appearance of movement, and that all admired but which no one bought because it was too overwhelming. Nonetheless, putting tangents aside, ennui was his plague, his nemesis and torturer. He felt quite sure that it would one day be his demise, when he finally broke – when he was finally coerced by the constant repeat of circumstances to give up any hope of a challenge, he would most likely collapse psychologically.

_It was the curse of people such as him._

He supposed that he was the one at fault for his troubles. It was statistically proven that he was a rare thing, and the majority would never see itself as the culprit for the misfortunes of minority groups - certainly not the ones that were seen as being at an advantage. It was typical to see oneself as the holder of what was right, and to alienate others as the unknown. The unknown, after all, was surrounded by an opaque mist, and was impossible to behold. If one believed that he was right, that he was light, it would be impossible to approach the shadow of L; as one would grow near it, the darkness would be extinguished and would vanish from view. How near-sighted they were, unable to consider the cons of superiority. Did they even consider that, according to Durkheim, the primary cause of suicide was a sense of non-belonging? Of course, L would never be one to do such a thing, but that did not mean that others like him had a similar attitude. The intellectually gifted were a doubly isolated group; isolated from the mainstream and isolated from one another, trapped in the solitude of their own endless thoughts. Once in a while, someone would try to infringe the boundary of their self-made world, but more often than not, they would be pushed out on the basis that they were an unequal, an inferior. It's not that L was an elitist. He simply saw reality as it was; it was not worth his time to bother talking with a lesser person. When necessity forced him into it, he made sure that his words were short and to the point in order to avoid further discussion.

_Misunderstandings became old, after a while, and so he had stopped caring about social interactions._

It was, after all, natural that he would not be understood if he expressed himself as he would in normal circumstances. He preferred to think of such a situation as normal because that was what it was by his standards, even if for the vast majority of people, it was just the opposite. Like his to them, their mode of thinking was an unknown for L; he could therefore only identify his own world as normal, and theirs as odd. Nevertheless, he was like the human surrounded by apes, wishing that, at least just once, he could meet another of his kind. Such a thing was highly unlikely. Sheer worldwide statistics relegated him to a very small indeed category of people who were scattered and difficult to find. He had therefore resigned himself to be a light that people look up to, but cannot approach without being burned – if they did come near, most would experience an intense feeling of inferiority. That was why he remained alone and hid himself behind a dim veil that allowed others to be conscious of his brightness, but did not permit his light to fully shine.

_He was bored, and he was lonely. The worst part was that there was no solution._

How could there be any other alternative than to be a recluse? When he was five years old, his mental age had been somewhere around ten, perhaps even more – the IQ tests did not seem to give any accurate evaluation, since he was clearly off the charts. By the time he had reached his teenage years, he didn't even have a mental age; his mind was more developed than any normal person's would ever be. It remained that, when he was a child, the idea of his advanced mental age had struck a nerve. With those who were his chronological age, he only fit in physically and emotionally, though he was odd on those aspects. With those who were his real age, he only fit in intellectually. He therefore had nowhere to go, no one to even complain to without being thought of as a veritable alien. It remained, though, that it was fascinating. Were those like him defying time in a way? By developing faster and further than others, they certainly ended up with more time as a fully capable being. They were forced to experience more, in every sense of the word; more intensely, with more insight, and from a younger age. It was not a choice.

_And yet, even when he knew he would always feel alone, he continued to hope._

L's situation was worsened by the fact that he could not even hope to force himself to fit in, or force others to adapt to him. It was like Plato's allegory of the cave, with a few modifications – such as considering that the cave was an illustration of the mind itself. He could not free the chained. It wasn't that they didn't want to be released; it was simply impossible. He was like the person who had never even been in the cave, and knew that it would be fruitless to enter. He had been basking in real sunlight for years, having a healthy life. They had been tied up in the dark, never obtaining the nutrition and air that could be found outside the cave. They were like a pack of cattle, all tied up together, only able to move as one giant unit, in a single direction. It was groupthink in its narrow splendour. They were like cattle, locked in a single, large underground area with no way of cleaning the area. The air they breathed was stale and recycled, but the darkness of the cave did not allow for any observation of that fact.

_Sometimes, he felt that they accused him without understanding._

Just like being born male or female, or Caucasian or African, being born "special" was not a matter of personal preference. Yet, others, himself included, saw L as being the chief culprit for his way of being. In his case, it had been through a long history of thoughts that had begun in his early childhood, back when he noticed that there was a difference between him and the other children. At first, he had felt proud; he had something that they did not. He soon realized, however, that the reason for his pride made him superior in a sense, and that superiority meant that someone had to be inferior. He had felt disgusted at himself for coming to this conclusion. Then, as human nature went, he had soon needed to blame someone for this – and had closed the circle of accusations and contempt between normal people and himself. At least, though, he knew what he was doing and why. They did not. Ignorance and stupidity were never an excuse.

_L desperately wanted to be understood._

He so easily forgot that, while he was capable of gliding right into someone's thoughts and views, of putting himself in someone else's place, others could not do the same. When he was reminded of that fact, he would lose patience, and could not help but think that the others were idiots. It was at times like those that he deluded himself into thinking that he did not really want others to understand him and to embrace him. If they did so, if they accepted him, they would only do it because he would be, in their view at least, like them. That was the one thing that he would never demote himself to. He refused to even try to be like them. It would be a sign of weakness. It would demand that he step on his pride and then let others trample on it unknowingly. It would mean that he had given up; that they had won the nonexistent and silent battle that took place. He would have shown the deep desire, the need and the hunger for human contact, and if human contact was something that only the normal people could get, it was beneath him to thirst for it. L would never overtly allow someone to know that he often did.

_He would deny it._

L would not show weakness. He perpetually convinced himself that he did not need to, and that he would always deal with his own needs by himself. Asking for help was also beneath him, and if anyone ever suggested it, he would refuse it.

_He would hide it._

He would hide his imperfections by pretending to be like a computer. Emotionless, efficient, he would fake a perfection that was not there. People saw what they wanted to see, and if he was any less than perfect while being so far above them, they would be disenchanted. It was easy to make them believe it. If a person's work was a testament to their entire self, L would always appear to be the epitome of self-control, of consistency of thought, of self-peace and self-respect.

_He had always done so, and he would never stop. _

L's eyes strayed away from the car's side window to rest on Watari's forearm and hand. That was all he could see from his rear seat. Lights and shadows alternated on the older man's limb, forming an even tempo. It was almost hypnotizing to see bands of light and bands of darkness roll on and off Watari in such a regular fashion. It was so far from what he was, so far from what he wanted to be. He wished his personal thoughts to be constant, to stop flickering from one end of a spectrum to another. Self-hatred and hatred of others, being understood and remaining a mystery, these were only the tip of the iceberg when it came to contradictory thoughts. L's eyes drifted up just in time to see a dishevelled youth stumble into the street in front of his automobile. It was too late to avoid a collision with the boy. Before he had any time to react, Watari had hit the brakes and L had been dislodged from his comfortable squat on the rear seat.

_But that would not change the fact that it was all he had ever wanted, and the one thing he firmly believed that he would never get._

**A/N: **

**(Pouf):** I'm writing my own A/N this time, though I don't doubt that Elly will write something later on today. I do know that this was… quite the angst, I suppose. Please don't hate me. The next chapter probably won't be as bad, and Raito and L will finally meet .

**Ellyanah**: Again I must ask you to not listen to anything she says about the quality of this story. It is great, isn't it? Leave her a review so she stops bugging me about it!

**(Pouf)** … She's annoying isn't she?? I think she gives me way too much credit. Anyway! I've decided to bring you chapters in sets of twins. They'll have a similar format, a similar style, and similar themes, with more major differences along the way, since obviously; it's not the same story as for the other chapter. Feel free to compare the first and second chapters and see all the similarities. I've decided to make this into a kind of writing experiment, to see where I can take this. Sometimes, the chapters might not come as "twins". This will be when I'm not following the perspective of one person apart from another. You'll see.

By the way, the lines in italics… just to clarify myself; they form a single entity of thoughts. Read them without the paragraphs in between and you'll see what I mean. They just "happen" to match with the body of the text, which works too if you want to look at them that way.

Oh, and before I shut up… Jurisprudence WILL have the major underlying theme of the philosophy of law. It'll be divided in three parts; the first will cover natural law, the second will be analytic jurisprudence, and the third will be normative jurisprudence. You'll know them when you see them.

Bows See you next time! And thanks to all of you who reviewed the first chapters I really appreciate it.


	3. Mirror Neurons

Chapter 3: Mirror Neurons

**Author's Note: **For apologies, read the author's note at the end. I'll presume you're more interested in reading the story than in my excuses. I'm trying to write this quickly to give you a decent chapter as an apology; we'll see where this goes. At the moment, I have no idea whatsoever as to where this chapter will go or how it will end. I don't even know what themes will emerge or the title. Not that I normally do, but whatever.

**Ellyanah**: I think that I will make it my usual comment to tell all readers to ignore the Author's note at the beginning and to go on and read the chapter. Pouf lighten up girl or I'll start to mistake you for a bored shinigami.

**Disclaimer:** Must I do this again? I don't own Death Note.

When Raito had regained consciousness, he had felt a mild throbbing of his head – a fuzzy feeling, unpleasant, but not an actual bother. He tried to collect his thoughts. Evening, thugs, a woman, a shop, the Death Note... His unconscious painstakingly attempted to steer him away from recalling the last events that had taken place, to no avail. The Death note, a pen, a crash, a death… a murder… Before the teenager went any further, he gained more awareness of his body. The pain in his head intensified, and he faintly felt a few bruises and scratches scattered on his limbs. In a wave, his latest thoughts surged back and extinguished the blissful unawareness that he had undergone earlier. Pain; at that moment, his eyes shot open as his headache – no, his migraine – reached a level above and beyond what could be described as excruciating.

The first sight that welcomed Raito back among the world of the conscious was quite an unbecoming pair of ebony eyes. Round, dark and dull - in a sense, the eyes were scary. Their odd appearance and the surprise Raito experienced at his first sight after his waking made the young man let out a yelp of shock that he failed to dissimulate. He wasn't only stunned by the eyes themselves – he was blown off his feet, figuratively speaking, by the way his own tattered face was reflected in them. Despite their terrifying lifelessness, these eyes did not show the normally simple and hazy reflection that the eyes of an interlocutor would give Raito. They displayed a perfect image that even the best mirror could not rival. Their black depths gave Raito truth, with no distortions or oversimplifications. They were pure, but dead – like the rotting corpse of an innocent murder victim, they gave the boy the painful reality of his deteriorating mental state. Mesmerized, he was unable to look away and was instead drawn deeper into the eyes' depths, in hopes of escaping the overwhelming view of his own face.

It was not a phizog that he felt any particular attachment to. It should not bother him to be under scrutiny. All that his face had ever earned him was more attention than he already had as an alleged genius. Granted, he cared much for his appearance – Raito had always allocated time for conscientious grooming, always more than a few minutes spent making sure everything was perfect. The mirror would faithfully provide him with the reflection of the ideal him he sought to show others. Yet, at that moment, he was destabilized by the way he was depicted in these eyes. He was undermined not only because of what he could assume to have been the previous evening - he felt diluted due to the fact that the eyes seemed to know about everything. Unlike the eyes of others, they did not show him a perfect dream – they instead threw a perfect imitation of reality at Raito.

These dark and dead eyes unbelievably reflected the truth that no reflective surface had ever come close to revealing. They showed the turmoil that inhabited Raito; they saw through the lies and uncovered the redundancy that the teenager repeatedly tried to hide from himself. It was one of his imperfections – the low capacity to break a chain of thought that went in circles, again, and again, and again. The eyes were unconsciously flinging it at him, as if it were an attempt to prove the speciousness of his earlier train of thoughts regarding the note.

Raito's hope of crossing the threshold of dullness into what was probably an abyss of darkness was crushed when the eyes suddenly moved away, giving their place to an emaciated face; the dark orbs were sunken and placed above tired half-moons that could pass off as bruises, and the face was so thin that it looked as if its owner hadn't eaten in ages. The teenager tried to shift, only to be pinned back down by a sharpened pain in his head. The unidentified being appeared to have deemed it reasonable to bluntly address the man he was currently looming over:

"Yagami-san, you were in an accident involving a car last night and hit your head on the pavement rather hard as you fell. I would suggest that you remain in the position you are presently in as to avoid further pain."

The individual the face belonged to was definitely odd. The man – if he could be assumed to be so even though his thin figure made him look young – lifted his thumb to his lips and began chewing on it. Raito supposed that this was an expression of perplexity. Chewing one's thumb was associated with early childhood – a period of bewilderment and discoveries during which the brain was most active in its development. It seemed logical that the man would turn to the gesture when he was at his most curious and intellectually active. Moreover, it was also synonymous of needing comfort, which was probably sparse, as he did not seem to be accustomed to taking care of injured persons if Raito were to go by his first words to him. Most would have at least tried console him. He decided that the best course of action would be to gain information about his immediate situation, but before he could open his mouth, the man spoke once again.

"I would also advise you to remain silent for the same reason. I will give you the information that you require, and if you have remaining questions, you may ask them when I am done. The date is December 21st, 2003, and it is currently nine hours and seventeen minutes past midnight. As you can see, you were unconscious from the moment you unthinkingly stumbled in front of the car that my assistant was driving and were hit. You are in a location that I will not disclose, but if you must know, you are on the eighth floor of a hotel. I instructed my assistant, whom you may call Watari, to bring you here and give you the medical attention that was necessary. This is why your head is bandaged and your scratches have been disinfected. Unfortunately, he is presently on a commission of mine, so you may address your gratitude to me, as I have been acting as your supervisor for the last eighteen minutes. You may call me Ryuuzaki."

Raito absorbed the information while trying to both ignore the migraine and repress the resurging and endless thoughts of the previous night. This man really was an oddity. He had to be so. If one thing in particular was to be noted, it was the manner in which _Ryuuzaki_ had seemed to add his name as an afterthought, as if it he was of no importance or as if it was simply a label that would be better off as a forgotten mass of letters.

Ryuuzaki's hands were buried deep in his pockets as he stood, hunching, before Raito's bed. He was like a willow tree, looking like he was trying to bend down as far as he could, to touch the ground and become a part of it. After all, weeping willows had always seemed as if they were trying to become the earth. They didn't look like they wanted to grow; they don't look like they wanted to be trees. It was as though they wanted to relinquish that birth-right of being so great, tall and mighty, and instead, attempted to blend in with the most minimal, least glorious of their neighbours. Ryuuzaki was like that, in a sense, as if he wished that others didn't notice him. He gave off a sense of apathy that conformed to the dullness of his eyes. It only led to one conclusion.

The man himself was lifeless. He may have realized it, and he may not have. Ryuuzaki's awareness or unawareness of his condition changed nothing, however. No one's eyes could possibly be that inert, in a practically comatose manner. It was clear that the odd, ageless stranger hated who he was along with his own way of life.

**A/N: **

**Pouf:** Congratulations to me, I wrote this in approximately 45 minutes without bothering to revise it. Thus, I really don't like this chapter. Perhaps that's because I wrote it in a hurry that it turned out this poorly. Anyway, at least the plot is advancing (I think I'm taking it too slow, actually…) and I got to release some of that exam tension – which, in truth, is part of the reason for the delayed update. First, I was unhappy for various reasons. Moreover, school was almost over when I last posted, which means I had a charming number of three essays to write and countless things to memorize. The stress level did not help the cause. Please don't blame me.


	4. Reflections and Projections

Chapter 4: Of Passive Reflections and Active Projections.

**Author's Note: **

**Pouf: **Alright. At the moment, I SHOULD be cramming for my exam that's in a few hours… but you see, it is my right to indulge in my guilty pleasure (writing this) as a lazy college student. Once again, I've got no clue where this is going, but I'll at least read it over before posting it (I just read over chapter three and am HORRIFIED by the last paragraphs). Actually, maybe I'll memorize a bit of stuff before writing. – Must keep the overall average up! – Elly, I envy you. I wish I didn't stress out like this despite being so lazy.

**Disclaimer:** All I own is the writing style and part of the plot. Death Note does not belong to me.

The boy in front of L was, to say the least, intriguing. While he had been unconscious, L had unceremoniously reached into Raito's pocket, hoping to find a form of identification. His wish had been granted when his fingers brushed against the leather of the teenager's wallet.

Yagami Raito, written with the kanji for _moon_.

Born: February 28, 1986.

Height: 179 cm.

Weight: 54 kg.

Blood type: A.

One thing had led to another, and L had not been able to resist the temptation of finding out more about the boy. After all, the detective was bored, with nothing better to do than to satisfy even his smallest curiosities. Raito was the son of the police chief, Yagami Souichiro, top student in Japan, winner of tennis tournaments until he chose to dedicate his time to his studies. Small details they were indeed, but they said so much about the teenager. There was a strong likelihood that he had a strong sense of justice, especially after having been in contact with the criminal cases his father sometimes asked him to solve. L figured that he could very well be disgusted by society. Raito's perfect achievement at school and in solving cases brought attention to his intelligence. L had found no results of IQ tests. Raito had never been tested – he probably did not want to be. It would only erect another barrier between others and him. In other words, Raito was probably at some level uneasy about himself, but mostly very confident in a cynical way that dictated the youth's superiority. It would take a lot to break his shell send him into a spiral of emotional instability. L assumed that such a thing had occurred in order to make this youth stumble uncontrollably in front of his car; he certainly was not clumsy, as was demonstrated by his ability in sports. Moreover, he appeared to be a competitive individual – perhaps even bordering on the childish need not to lose. The detective absentmindedly noted that Raito would probably make a good sparring partner on the tennis court.

Yagami Raito certainly was intriguing only with these characteristics. A curiosity, ready to be analyzed from all angles, torn apart and put back together for the amusement it would procure L. There was yet more fascination that surrounded the teenager. There was the notebook. After L had been satisfied by his earlier findings, he had moved on to Raito's backpack, only to find a black book. Those sixty yellowing pages, bound together by thick black paper, were the real mystery. The detective had never been one to believe in the supernatural, but this _death note_ seemed to give evidence to the contrary.

_The Human whose name is written in this note shall die._

_This Note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected._

_If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen._

_If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack._

_After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds._

From the sinister rules and instructions to the two names of deceased men, it raised questions. However, L had rudely been prevented from furthering any research on the subject by a discourteous sugar craving. He had been forced to send Watari to the specialty pastry shop, a trip that would take a good hour. His suspicions about Raito had nonetheless already been awakened, so L had also been forced through his own paranoia to stay at his side; he did not want the boy to wake up and walk around unsupervised. It remained, though, that there was most likely a link between the strange notebook and Raito's odd behaviour.

When the youth had started to stir, only to later open his eyes, L had stared. The teenager appeared to be in pain – to be expected. Nevertheless, there was something in those mahogany eyes that expressed a constant thinking process, without revealing the nature of Raito's thoughts. He felt those pain-filled eyes gazing deeply into his own, in what appeared to be an attempt to preliminarily evaluate L. Despite everything the boy had endured in the last twelve hours, he remained incredibly alert – his eyes were alive and projected a stronger will than L had ever seen. He felt invigorated by their energy, but they also reminded the detective that he was far more lifeless – absorbing information and spitting it back out as a conclusion, like a disinterested machine, was all he ever did.

L, coming out of his ponderings, then proceeded to inform Raito of his situation.

**A/N: **

**Pouf:** I ended up finishing this after the exam, ha. (While listening to Chopin. Indeed, I am weird. Oh, but it's so relaxing!) Actually, exams were over a while ago. I just couldn't decide HOW to end this chapter, and ended up just cutting it there. Sorry for the wait… and I KNOW this chapter is too short. Oh, and I just realized how fragmented this story is… I'm sorry. And um… once again, I was too lazy to re-read… please forgive me.


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